Ace Sanchez presents: Ranma + Ryoga Part 2
Get Part 1 at http://jsa.users.fl.net.au if you missed it.
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A soft gasp shattered the night's silence. The little girl was sitting
up in bed, the white covers tangled in her legs. Light from the moon 
briefly reflected off the moist cheeks of her face as it shone in 
through the window. It suddenly cut out when the clouds covered it 
again, dropping the small room back into darkness. Various toys on the 
bookshelf looked sinister in the shadows.

Her bare shoulders shivered uncontrollably underneath the pink night
gown she was wearing. Eyes wide open in fright were set in an 
unnaturally, pale face. She drew her knees up to her chest and hid her 
face in her crossed arms. She let out a small sob as she remembered the 
dream. The nightmare.

"Why did you leave us Daddy?" she had shouted hoarsely at the shadowy
figure. She just knew it had to be her father. Although she could not 
see his features she just somehow knew it. "Why aren't you here with me 
and Mama?"

The shadow that was her father remained silent.

"Why don't you come back?" she had cried. "Don't you love us?" she
sobbed desperately.

Then suddenly a thin tendril of darkness had begun to creep out of the 
shadow. The little girl shook her head in shock as the blackness within
the gloom was momentarily revealed. "You ... you can't be Daddy!"

The darkness had then manifested into a shape she could not describe nor
remember clearly. The only thing that she knew for sure after she woke 
up was that it was a monster and that it had been going to kill her.

The girl stopped sobbing as she thought of her mother. Mama! She 
grew comforted at the knowledge that she was not alone. Her mother would 
tuck her into bed with her and hug her tight whenever she had a bad
dream. No monster would get her if she was with Mama.

The little girl turned on to her stomach and slid off the bed, letting
the covers slip on to the blue carpet. She was especially careful to
avoid looking at the headboard. By day, it was in the shape of cute 
teddy bear's head. But tonight she was afraid it would wake up and turn 
into a demon if she so much as looked at it. 

Keeping her head slightly askew, she stepped softly across the carpeted
floor and opened her bedroom door a tiny crack. She looked first right,
then left out in the hallway. She carefully inspected each shadow for
anything that could remotely be hiding in it. After satisfying herself
that there was nothing, she opened the door half way and, turning her
body sideways, slipped out.

The air was cold, and the tiled floor made her bare feet shiver.
Somewhere outside, she could here the crickets chirping. Each noise made 
her tense more and more. She began walking faster, making sure that she 
only stepped on the tips of her toes. She turned the corner and sighed 
in relief when she saw the closed door of her mother's bedroom ahead.
Before seeing it with her own eyes, she had a crazy fear that the door 
would not be there and instead she would see a blank, white wall. She
rushed forward, eager to be in the circle of her mother's arms.

As she grew nearer to her mother's room, she began to hear a muffled
sobbing. There was also a frightening thumping sound every few seconds.
The little girl paused. That can't be Mama, she thought. She never 
cries. However the noise only grew louder as she continued to approach 
her mother's closed bedroom door with smaller steps.

After a few more pauses, finally she stood in front it. She briefly 
stared at the small picture frame that hung on the door. Dried red 
flowers decorated a photograph of her and Mama hugging and smiling in 
front of an amusement park. She was reassured, at least until the 
shadows playing across the surface enveloped it in enough darkness so
that she could no longer see it. 

She looked curiously at the door. It was moving slightly. Vibrating. She 
shuddered at a particularly loud thump that came from behind it. The 
picture frame rattled. A red flower came loose and drifted down on to 
the floor by her small feet.

Hesitantly, she put her hand on the doorknob slowly. The metal was cold
to the touch. Her hand shivered. She twisted it and lightly pushed. The 
hinges groaned as the door opened and she slid in. Once inside, she 
looked up and a tiny gasp escaped her.

On the floor beside the large bed, parts of the covers snaked around as
the leg that was entangled in it moved about, thrashing violently. Her
mother, lying on top of the bed, jerked from side to side as she sobbed
every few moments. She seemed to be crying, but her eyes were still 
closed. 

The little girl did not know that a person could cry in their sleep. She
got a tight feeling in her stomach and her eyes watered. S-She couldn't
be crying! Could this be because Daddy is not with us? Maybe her mother 
was having the same nightmare.

"R-Ryoga, what are y-you doing?" The shout abruptly came out of her
mother's mouth shockingly loud, startling her. There was a powerful
thrashing of her left arm as her hand clenched into a fist. She began
trying to punch an invisible figure that might have been on top of her.

The little girl cowered backwards in fear, almost running out of the
room. But she could not flee like she wanted to. For some reason her 
feet were rooted to the ground.

Her mother's arm suddenly fell and stopped moving as if someone had 
forced it down. "You bastard! I-I can't believe you're doing this!" 
A pause. "Stop it. I-It hurts ..." Another scream came out of her 
throat.

The little girl tried to close her eyes but couldn't. A tear slid down 
her cheek slowly. It tickled. She wanted to wipe it away but she 
couldn't do that either. She couldn't move.

Her mother's head jerked sideways as if someone hit her. "Y-You're
enjoying this aren't you," she sobbed pathetically. "If Akane could see
you now, y-you rapist."

Suddenly her whole upper body jerked upright. She began to convulse as 
if the invisible figure were furiously shaking her. Then her head jerked 
backwards, she let out a sigh and fell down on to the bed. After ten 
minutes with no more movement, just hard breathing, it became apparent 
that the nightmare was over.

The little girl suddenly realised that she was sitting down on the 
floor. She didn't remember sinking to the ground. The room was now 
silent, except for the sounds of her dry heaving. Hot tears made twin 
streaks down her face as they dripped on the carpet. She sat there 
looking at everything and nothing. She had just remembered what the
shadow had said just before she woke up. 

Ryanko covered her face with her small hands as she sobbed quietly into
them. It had said that its name was Ryoga.


***

Ranma + Ryoga (OAV Mini-series)		
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Written by Ace Sanchez

(Standard disclaimer: Ranma 1/2 and its associated characters 
created by Rumiko Takahashi. This is a DARK fic. You were warned.)
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Part 2 "Daddy's Little Girl"


The early morning was a tapestry of gloom, woven exclusively from shades
of black and graveyard greys. Above China, it was a pure mat of darkness.
The dusky cloud cover blowing rapidly in the sky made sure that no stars
or moon was visible. An icy wind blew a strong chilliness that seemed to
freeze one's soul more than the body. Despite this, it was ominously
silent. 

Somewhere, in the darkest, most rural area of the country, high up in 
the upper canopy of the forests, a heavy-set man with dark hair was 
hanging precariously at least fifty feet high in the air. His only 
support was the firmly clenched fist holding him up by the collar around 
his neck. He was slowly but surely sliding down into his scrunched 
shirt, the tightness beginning to give him trouble breathing.

"R-Ryanko?" The man's voice choked out of his dry throat to the figure
that was holding him up, seemingly effortlessly. The dark orange 
bandanna tied around his head was hot and wet with perspiration. His 
hands desperately clutched at the wrist near his throat. Directly below 
him, the ground beckoned silently, invitingly, waiting patiently for his
inevitable fall.

In contrast to the dangerous aura that the cloaked figure holding him up 
emitted, it was a strange sight that his captor was actually a young 
female. Despite her youth, she was unusually tall, with a slender but 
athletic frame. 

Shadows played across the girl's face, no longer concealed in the hood
of her cloak. Her hair seemed one with the darkness of twilight, long 
strands of night that surrounded her hauntingly beautiful face. They
diverged into a thick, three foot long braid that escaped behind her, 
floating in the chilling wind.

"I-It can't be ..."

The girl was silent for a moment, not answering. The only indication 
that she even heard the useless denial, was an ominous tightening of her 
fist. 

"Ryoga Hibiki," her soft voice stated unemotionally. "You really are a
bit slow aren't you?" Despite the disinterested tone in her voice, her
blue and green eyes were blazing in a curious mix of scorn and
satisfaction.

Ryoga shook his head wildly, as best he could within the girl's tight 
grasp. "W-With R-Ranma? I-It's impossible!"

Suddenly, she let go of him and spun around so shockingly quick that,
despite his powerful grip on her forearm, Ryoga's hold slid away as 
easily as water through an open hand. For the briefest of moments, he 
hung suspended in midair, strangely reminiscent of a cartoon he had seen 
in his younger days. Then she completed her rapid spin into a massive 
roundhouse double kick, the first catching him in the stomach, tilting 
him forward, the second in the chest stopping his forward spin and 
propelling him into a backwards rotation instead. 

The world spun crazily in a universe of pain. His back abruptly exploded 
in agony. A tree had stopped his wild tumble. He seemed to stick to the
bark of its trunk for a few agonising moments, before he began to slide
downwards. The rough wood shredded his shirt and scratched into his 
back, drawing blood. It seemed as if all he could see were leaves 
fluttering everywhere.

As he tumbled downwards, Ryoga desperately spun into a somersault to 
gain his equilibrium and managed to catch another branch with both 
hands. He painfully brought himself up on top of it. At the noise of a 
branch rustling, he looked up to see Ryanko standing on the limb of 
another nearby tree. She had a smirk on her lips.

"The teacher's in school always said I was impossible, but I never 
really believed it." She shook her head mock sadly. "And now, my own 
father, agreeing with them."

Ryoga choked as he stood up, one hand on the bough for support, the 
other rubbing his sore throat. He couldn't believe it. He had a 
daughter. With Ranma. It didn't seem possible. He looked at her
closely. Her face did resemble Ranma's in female form. Except she had 
an eerie quality that somehow made her more beautiful. And if he was
indeed her father, she had certainly received her fair share of the
Hibiki strength. He just didn't understand how she could be even 
stronger than him.

"I-If you really are my daughter, I-I don't want to fight you."

"You still doubt it?" She smiled, letting her fangs show. "With these
two ugly teeth? And this?" She pointed to her left, grass green eye 
which was of a like shade to his. The other was a deep blue, reminding 
him of Ranma, except there was something lacking in it. Maybe, despite 
his denial of it so long ago, it was Ranma's ingrained compassion. 

She smirked at his observation of her. "Sorry, but you fit the bill. And
here's your prize!" Shockingly, she grasped the trunk of the tree she 
was standing on, and ripped the whole top of the tree off with a huge 
crack. Ryoga's eyes widened. The piece she was hefting was at least 
twenty feet tall!

He leaped out of the way frantically as she threw the massive piece of 
wood at him, which spun around like a huge propeller. One of the sharp 
branches sticking out of the mutilated tree top ripped open his pant 
leg and cut a long tear in his thigh, as it passed by. He rotated into 
a flip, clutching his wounded leg as he alighted on another tree's 
branches. He watched as the thrown tree top crashed into another tree,
snapping it in half. The massive tree limbs fell below creating a huge
amount of noise as they smashed into more branches before finally
crashing into the distant ground. Now he knew how she decapitated
Katsunnishi. She most likely just ripped his head off with her bare
hands. Her strength was monstrous.

"That was all you yesterday wasn't it?" Ryoga called out, looking around
desperately for her. The fluttering leaves in the air made it hard to
see, not to mention the gloominess of the very early morning. He found 
her, fortunately still standing where she was, dusting off her hands. 
"You were just playing with me."

Ryanko looked up at him and shrugged. "After all this time I've been
looking for you, what I really wanted to do was just rip your damn head 
off as soon as I found you. You are one lost bastard," she said, shaking
her head.

Then she narrowed her eyes. "But it seemed like just a waste. Revenge is 
best savored and drunk slowly like pig's blood. So I had to content 
myself with a different piece of bacon." She frowned at him. "But
frankly, after one day I couldn't take it. After looking at your 
expression last afternoon, I just have to kill you," she continued,
cracking her knuckles. "I should really get back to doing just that."

Ryoga lowered his profile into a defensive posture. "I won't fight you,
but I'm warning you, I won't just let you kill me either. I'll defend
myself, and I've gotten pretty good over the years." Indeed, he had a 
few tricks up his sleeves. 

Ryanko just smiled at him. Then suddenly, Ryoga didn't know how, she was
directly in front of him. One instant she was standing over about thirty
feet away, the next instant she was standing _right_ there on the same
branch. Striking out, shockingly fast, she kicked his legs out from 
under him. Ryoga fell backwards, and grasped the branch with his hands, 
to back-flip away. He rotated smoothly in the air. Pain exploded in his 
back, however, when he was rolling around to land. She had somehow 
gotten behind him, at the place he was moving towards, before he got 
there! The momentum of her hit propelled him forwards to smash into the 
trunk of the tree.

Desperately, as he rested face first upon the trunk, he built up the
feeling of his ki in his stomach and rapidly spread it through his body.
Just in time, as he felt a huge strike on his back, cracking the trunk in
front of him and sending him through it to fly across to the other side.
However instead of feeling the huge pain of the blow, it was muted 
enough so that he felt only a mild discomfort. He somersaulted forwards 
in the air to grab another branch and swung up on it to land on his feet 
along the narrow limb. He turned back to find that she was already gone.

"Not bad." The voice was directly above him. Startled, he looked up to 
see her sitting on an upper branch, lightly swinging her feet. "Ki 
shield, right? It's nice to find out that my old man isn't totally 
stupid. In fact, it's even better for me, now that I don't have to pull 
my punches anymore." She smiled wickedly, her sharp fangs showing. 
"After all, we can't have you dying too fast."

Ryoga, sensing her about to move, tried to jump away before she could
attack. However, despite knowing this, he was still too slow. Her form 
blurred and an invisible seeming fist came out of nowhere and into his 
stomach, doubling him over despite his ki manipulations. It sent him 
rolling backwards along the branch. Using his fingernails to scratch 
along the wood, he slowed himself enough so that he wouldn't fall off. 

He coughed out some blood as he lay on his chest, hugging the rough 
bark. She really was pulling her punches. "H-How did you get so strong? 
Y-You're a monster!"

"A monster you created," she replied matter of factly. "I'm sick of
fighting in these stupid trees. Meet the ground Daddy!" She made a huge
somersault leap and then descended, chopping through the branch he was 
laying on with her hand at its connection to the trunk.

Ryoga desperately tried to stand up and jump off before she cut through,
but he didn't make it. The limb fell away beneath him and he began to 
fall. He crashed down through numerous branches, descending rapidly. He 
tried to catch himself on each one he passed, but each time he caught 
one, Ryanko, who was directly above and following him down, branch by 
branch, chopped it off the tree with a powerful swipe of her hand.

The ground rushed up to meet him. Fortunately, his catching of several 
branches, however brief, broke his fall enough so that he could land 
relatively unharmed. Even so he had to go into a forward roll to further
distribute his momentum. He sat up to watch Ryanko land with a massive
crunching sound, her feet striking the wooded ground so hard, huge 
amounts of dirt, foliage and dust flew everywhere. He choked, waving it 
away from his face.

When the cloud of debris cleared, he saw her standing there, her black 
cloak billowing out in the breeze. Leaves fluttered down all around 
them. Abruptly, several more severed branches crashed down making more 
noise. She lightly leapt out of the small crater she created to land 
several feet away. 

Ryoga crouched on one knee and warily followed her movement with his 
eyes. He thought frantically. He could not effectively defend against 
her speed. Essentially, his strengths were his offensive abilities. He 
was not a defensive fighter. Hell, before Ryanko he did not really need 
to defend, he could shrug most blows off. But she was so damn strong, 
one hit from her could hurt him badly. 

He could not last much longer. Already, the ki shield he was desperately 
maintaining was sapping his strength. And it wasn't even enough to fully 
stop her blows from hurting him. The blood loss was making him feel 
faint. He looked up at the sky and was surprised that it was getting 
lighter. The sun had begun to rise. He laughed pathetically to himself 
at a ridiculous thought. She was not a vampire to disappear at the first 
sign of daylight. She had inherited the fangs from him, after all.

His eyes narrowed. However, if he did not start attacking soon, he would 
be the one to disappear. But in death, he thought sourly. But he just 
could not bring himself to attack his own daughter.

"Now, Daddy, where were we?" She blew the long hair from her eyes and 
brushed the long braid of ebony hair off her shoulder. "I can call 
you Daddy right? I don't mean to be disrespectful." She ripped her cloak 
off, letting it glide to the mossy ground behind her. It revealed her 
clothing as the Chinese style black pants of the type Ranma always used 
to wear as well as a sleeveless dark shirt of the same type. Long black 
bandannas tied to her right arm below the elbow flapped around loosely.

"And children should always respect their parents!" she said just 
before she leaped forward in a furious combo, right back handed punch, 
followed by left, spinning elbow, it continued on and on. Ryoga was hard 
pressed to block each attack, but realised that she was not nearly 
hitting as hard as she could nor utilising her superior speed. Was she 
still playing with him? 

He also began to realise that she was not just using Anything Goes 
attacks on him, but several other styles which he recognised as Amazon 
techniques, as well as other forms he observed on his travels. What was 
most surprising, though, was that he recognised his own martial arts 
style flowing from some of her attacks. But to learn that, she must have 
been to his home town in Japan ... 

Suprisingly, he felt an ironic sense of pride that _his_ daughter was 
such a good fighter. Sadly, it was a misplaced feeling seeing as that 
she was using her skill to try and end his life.

Finally she ended with a powerful backwards somersault kick which Ryoga 
couldn't block even though it was obvious she wasn't really trying. He
was propelled backwards, his feet scraping the ground in twin streaks as
he slid, his body leaning back at a forty-five degree angle. A tree 
trunk behind him stopped his sliding, aggravating the deep scratches in 
his back. He was just too tired to keep his ki defense up. He spat out 
more blood. This time he thought that she probably broke several of his 
ribs. He pushed himself off the tree and stood up, coughing a little.

Ryanko frowned at him. "Aren't you ever going to fight back?"

"I-I can't fight you. Can't you see? You're my daughter no matter how
impossible it seems, and ... and after what I did to Ranma, I'm
afraid that I probably deserve this. H-how is he?"

She snarled, her blue and green eyes beginning to glow again. "It's
'she' you bastard rapist. You're the reason she's like this now! 
You gave us pain and suffering, it's only right that you suffer as 
well!"

Ryoga tensed and concentrated his ki shield just in time as she blurred
forward. A massive strike so hard, it actually broke through nearly all 
his defenses, sent him flying backwards like a bullet and through the 
trunks of several trees. He landed painfully on his back, the rough 
ground scraping his already ravaged back as he skidded along 
haphazardly. It took yet another tree to actually stop his rapid, 
backwards slide. He lay on his side, half on the ground, half on the 
rough trunk, trying to breathe, gasping loudly and spitting out blood 
and saliva. There was numerous loud crashes as the mutilated trees he 
burst through succumbed to gravity and fell down like dominoes, taking 
several nearby, smaller trees down with them.

Ryanko leaped over to land on a large, newly formed, smoking black tree
stump in front of him. "But you're not making this satisfying enough. 
Imagine, trying to be noble and good and not fight me. Where was your 
nobility seventeen years ago, you piece of shit?"

Ryoga sat up, aching in pain. He groaned as he shakily got on his feet. 
There was definitely another rib broken. And maybe even his collarbone. 
Fortunately, his ki shield had been strong enough to dampen most of the 
collisions. Otherwise he probably would've been shattered like a piece 
of fragile glass by now. He tiredly wiped the sweat (or was that blood?)
off of his forehead with his hand. At the sudden naked feeling, he 
realised that his headband had been destroyed in the fight, some shreds 
of it still smoking in his hair. In fact, all of his clothes were 
smoking, the front of his yellow shirt had several burnt patches and 
tears, while the back of it was probably nonexistent. There was also 
more of his black pants gone than what was left of it. 

Sharp pain suddenly made him clutch his arms in agony. He looked down to 
find numerous long, thin slashes on his bare forearms. They were deep 
and beginning to bleed freely. He didn't see it earlier, but those black 
bandannas attached to her right arm were as sharp as knives. It 
reinforced his belief that she had somehow trained in his own martial 
art. He remembered using this same technique of sharp cloth on Ranma, 
once very long ago.

He closed his eyes in despair at the thought of Ranma. Somehow, if he
got out of this alive, he was sure that the key to resolving this led 
back to facing the most unforgivable act he had ever done in his life. 
The unforgivable act that he could never forget no matter how hard he 
tried. The act he sometimes relived in intermittent nightmares. And now, 
the fruits of that act had caught up with him. Was it poetic justice?

His eyes opened slowly to look at her unforgiving face. "I-I'm sorry, if 
that means anything to you now ..." he whispered. "D-Daughter ..."

"Don't call me that!" she snarled. "You think you can just apologise and
that will make everything alright? Honor demands your death!" She smiled
darkly. "And dishonor demands that I should inflict the hurt you have
spread on to the one person you care about most. I understand that I 
have a stepmother?"
 
"A-A-Akari!" Ryoga cried. The rage within him, that was familiar that 
night long ago, rushed back like the sea after low tide. Uncalled for, 
he began to feel the dark, black energy of depression and anger, that 
lay dormant for so long, force themselves into his arms and begin to 
rush towards his hands. 

He began to emit a black aura. Foliage, dirt and other debris started to 
get slowly sucked towards him in a vacuum as if he were in the center of
a forming hurricane. Branches rustled loudly and trunks began to sway
dangerously.

Unfazed, Ryanko observed him atop the black tree stump, her clothes and 
hair beginning to flap violently in the suction of the wind. She 
continued to smile that small smile. "That's it, Pop. Show me that you 
can, at least, put up a fight."

Ryoga could feel the heaviness and bleakness of his despair take over 
his body. "I-I can't let you hurt Akari!" he shouted uncontrollably. He 
lifted his arms skywards, releasing the intensity of his black emotions 
into a sphere of pure destructive violence all around him.

"SHIN SHISHI HOUKOUDAN!"


*** End of part 2 *** To be continued...

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C&C much appreciated!

Ace Sanchez (email: jsa@fl.net.au | www: http://jsa.users.fl.net.au/)